# License source code to AI companies: prices and checks

> Want to sell source code to AI companies? You license it. Troveo cites a $5,000 per-repo baseline, shutdown deals reach $100,000, and labs want history.

By Matt Burns, Vaultfish. Canonical: https://vaultfish.com/answers/sell-source-code-to-ai-companies  
Published: 2026-09-11  
Updated: 2026-10-14

## The short answer

Troveo's guide says AI companies want full code history: commits, pull requests and code reviews. It cites an unnamed platform's $5,000 baseline per repository. Shutdown deals run $10,000 to $100,000 per company. Google bid $10 million for Spirit Airlines' archive, with 30 million lines of code.

Our [legal page on source code](/answers/can-i-sell-source-code-to-ai) covers licenses and export rules. This page covers what buyers want and what has been reported.

## What does Troveo say labs want with source code?

A snapshot of source code is worth little to a lab, [Troveo says](https://www.troveo.ai/resources/sell-code-to-ai-companies), because there's already a lot of code in the world.

In Troveo's account, labs pay for production history: full commit history, pull requests and code review, linked tickets, design docs and incident notes, and the configuration that lets a buyer run the code. [Troveo](/buyers/troveo) calls the trail around the code workflow data.

Troveo sells this service, so read the list as its view of what labs ask for.

## What have sales reported?

- **An unnamed platform's baseline:** $5,000 per repository, adjusted up or down after grading, as Troveo's guide reports it. The guide doesn't name the platform.
- **SimpleClosure:** about $10,000 to $100,000 per shutting-down company, nearly 100 deals in a year, per [Gizmodo](https://gizmodo.com/failed-companies-are-selling-old-slack-chats-and-email-archives-to-train-ai-2000747916).
- **A single founder:** hundreds of thousands of dollars for a complete company dataset including code, as Troveo reports it.
- **Spirit Airlines:** Google's [$10 million bid](https://time.com/article/2026/08/25/google-spirit-airlines-ai-data-RL/) covered about 30 million lines of code with the emails and chats, and the court has not approved it.

## What do owners clear first?

Troveo's checklist has three parts. Confirm that every contributor, including contractors and agencies, assigned their work to the company.

Inventory open-source dependencies and flag copyleft code. Remove secrets, credentials and customer data from the history. Code written for clients may belong to the client.

## Is a source code deal a license or an outright sale?

Troveo says an operating company usually licenses and keeps ownership, and that an outright sale is common in a shutdown. See [shutting down and licensing workspace data](/answers/can-a-shutting-down-company-sell-its-slack-to-ai) for that route. Talk to a commercial lawyer in your state before you sign.

Our [rights check](/rights-check) asks about customer contracts, NDAs and who can sign, and our free [fit check](/business) asks whether code repositories are among your systems. Neither reviews open-source licenses.

Our only referral relationship is with micro1, an AI data company. It may pay us a fee if a company we introduce goes ahead with it. You pay nothing extra. [How we are paid](https://vaultfish.com/disclosure)

Figure: scale, Reported figures for code deals: Unnamed platform's baseline, per repository $5,000, Shutdown deals, per company $10K to $100K (emphasized). An unnamed platform's per-repository baseline sits below what shutdown deals pay. Source: Troveo guide, citing an unnamed platform, and Gizmodo.

_Vaultfish helps you run the process. We are not lawyers and this is not legal advice. If you need counsel who knows this area, we can point you to one._

## Sources

- [Troveo says](https://www.troveo.ai/resources/sell-code-to-ai-companies)
- [Gizmodo](https://gizmodo.com/failed-companies-are-selling-old-slack-chats-and-email-archives-to-train-ai-2000747916)
- [$10 million bid](https://time.com/article/2026/08/25/google-spirit-airlines-ai-data-RL/)